Out & About …

… on the North York Moors, or wherever I happen to be.

  • Start of the Lyke Wake Walk

    Start of the Lyke Wake Walk

    Or is it the finish? A 40 forty mile walk across the highest parts of the North York Moors, with most people tending to start here and finish at Ravenscar on the coast. Since its inception in 1955, the idea of the late Bill Cowley, the walk rapidly gained in popularity during the 60s/70s; in…

  • Gribdale and Easby Moor from Cliff Rigg

    Gribdale and Easby Moor from Cliff Rigg

    St Swithin’s day if thou dost rain’ For forty days it will remain; St Swithin’s day if thou be fair, For forty days will rain na mair. So goes the well-known rhyme, and as it’s St Swithin’s day, and as it’s been a lovely dry day, a summer of sunshine awaits us. It all began…

  • Yorkshire’s Matterhorn

    Yorkshire’s Matterhorn

    A rushed snap as I pedalled home along Easby Lane. I don’t know who first compared Roseberry Topping with the Matterhorn. I traced one reference to 1890 but suspect it was already well in use. It is likely that the comparison dates from a few decades earlier following the first ascent of the ‘real’ Matterhorn…

  • Guibal fan-house, Skelton Shaft ironstone mine

    Guibal fan-house, Skelton Shaft ironstone mine

    A great visit around the surface remains of the Skelton Park and Skelton Shaft Ironstone Mines, guided by the knowledgeable Simon and Steve from the Cleveland Mining History Society (CMHS). Along with the powder magazine, the fan-house at Skelton Shaft are the only buildings remaining. The rest of the site was demolished as a condition of…

  • Cranimoor

    Cranimoor

    Just ten minutes earlier the “hog-backed sweep of Cranimoor” as Frank Elgee wrote was clear. Time to head back to the car before the weather deteriorates. I am on Cold Moor looking across the col of Little Raisdale, for want of a better name. At 432 m, Cringle Moor, to give the hill its more…

  • A live posting

    A live posting

    Thought I would take an evening stroll. It’s very quiet up here on Cliff Ridge. Just the odd car moving below. Anything happening in the world? Only kidding. But I’m not the least interested in watching football. Of course, I want England to win, for the delight of my family and friends. But what irritates…

  • Bell heather – the most beautiful of the heathers

    Bell heather – the most beautiful of the heathers

    This day, in 1940, is officially recognised as the start of the Battle of Britain, a fight for control of the skies that would begin the German bombing campaign known as the Blitz. A bombing campaign against British cities was not unforeseen.  Before the war, the Chamberlain government feared deadly raids by the German Luftwaffe,…

  • Rudland Rigg

    Rudland Rigg

    I have often wondered what the old medieval roads across the moors were like. The temptation is to imagine they were similar to modern access roads but these have had the benefit of contemporary maintenance techniques with hydrocarbon fuelled machines. I think pot-holes and deep mud would have been the norm. Route were north-south, following…

  • Dovedale

    Dovedale

    In the south of the Moors. It’s been over eighteen months since I was last here. The rich grassland of Dovedale is part of the National Trust’s Bridestones property. Prior to 2015, the dale was heavily infested with bracken, but since then the Trust has carried out annual cutting, by hand usually in two sessions.…

  • Kildale

    Kildale

    There is a cracking photo of Kildale taken by Michael Heavisides in 1903, taken from almost this same spot, perhaps closer to the middle of the road. Much safer in those days. A group of four men stand casually chatting outside the “Blacksmith’s Arms”, the first building in the range. There is bunting hanging between…

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